Crazy road rage incident in East Austin caught on tape

Crazy road rage incident in East Austin caught on tape

By
KVUE News

Feb 11, 2015, 10:12 am

Police are investigating an odd incident in East Austin involving this man.
Screenshot/KVUE News

KVUE — A woman caught a driver on camera in Central East Austin after she spotted him driving recklessly on Berkman Drive. Julie Nowlin had her 4-year-old daughter in the back seat when she left to meet neighbors for coffee last week around 9 am. That's when she noticed a driver trying to run others off the road.

"[He was] crossing on the yellow stripe, driving in the bike lane, driving really close to them, intimidating them until they exited and left," Nowlin said. So Nowlin grabbed her phone to document it. "I went to take a picture of his license plate and he saw me in the rear view mirror," Nowlin said.

The cellphone video shows a man pull over into a bike lane, get out of the car and spit on Nowlin's windshield. He then shouts profanities before making his way back to the car.

Nowlin said the man pulled over and got out three different times while she tried to get away. "He proceeded to try to follow me, chased me around the neighborhood at high speeds, almost hit a lady jogger," she said.

While she was being chased Nowlin called 911, but says she lost the man. In an attempt to get away from the scene, Nowlin rushed to a Starbucks close by. "I'm shaking right now talking about it — it was horrible," Nowlin said. "I was just hiding in Starbucks for two hours, waiting for police."

Now she hopes others will come forward to help Austin police catch him. Nowlin sent her video to CultureMap's partner KVUE and posted it on the neighborhood listserv. That's when several other people spoke up with similar stories about who they believe is the same man.

This weekend, a KVUE employee saw the same man get out of his car and harass a driver at a red light. Another man in the neighborhood didn't want to go on camera, but said the same man tailgated him and chased him down Berkman Drive to 51st Street.